


we'll be looking for sunlight

by kathillards



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers Megaforce
Genre: F/M, M/M, ot3 fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-20 22:12:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4804130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathillards/pseuds/kathillards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orion is good at noticing things. —- TroyEmmaOrion</p>
            </blockquote>





	we'll be looking for sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> hi so this is an ot3 fic, as in all three of them are in a relationship together, so if that's not your thing you might want to backclick.
> 
> there's some sexual content hinted at, but not graphic or explicit. mostly about feelings and talking and kissing and things.
> 
> hope you enjoy, and please consider leaving a comment if you do!

**we’ll be looking for sunlight**

_we’ll be looking for sunlight_  
_or the headlights_  
_till our wide eyes_  
_burn blind_

— halsey, roman holiday

-:-

Orion is good at noticing things.

He trained himself to be, after the invasion of his planet, to always look at anyone new as a potential enemy, to study their actions and behaviors and be sure that he could fight them or escape them, if need be. It became a necessary survival skill for him very quickly.

But on Earth, with his new team, he begins to notice things that don’t have to do with fighting at all. Like how Jake only has eyes for Gia, but she thinks of him as a friend; like how Noah sometimes looks at Jake like he’s willing him to look back; like how Gia doesn’t really seem to feel that way about anyone, but she smiles brightest for her friends.

Mostly, though, he notices things about Troy and Emma.

Things like how Troy always smells like the woods, whether he’s been training there or not, all warm and crisp like autumn when the leaves are falling and everything looks golden. Or how Emma’s lips are always a shade of peach-pink, soft and sweet like summer when the skies are blue and the sun is blinding.

Things like how Troy prefers casual touches to public displays of affection, a hand on Emma’s back when they’re standing together or on Orion’s leg under the table when they’re all sitting; or how Emma likes to use them both as pillows, one for her head and one for her feet, and she doesn’t much mind which one of them is which.

Like how Troy is always a rock, steady, solid, reassuring in his calmness, and Emma is a flower, always in full bloom, lending light and air to the world around her, and Orion doesn’t always know where he fits in between them, but he knows that he does, and that’s enough.

-:-

“Was I the first one to notice you guys?” he asks, the question having swirled around his mind for days before he finally blurts it out one night when they’re all lying in Troy’s bed. “Like, the two of you being together?”

Emma shrugs from Troy’s other side – he doesn’t reply, still breathing too hard from their evening activities – and says, “I think Gia knows, but she hasn’t said anything. I don’t think she _noticed_ , though, I think she just… always knew.”

Orion thinks on this for a moment. Gia doesn’t feel that way about Jake, but she is smart, perceptive, and clever. Troy and Emma never parade themselves around, but they were never half as subtle as they thought they were, either.

“Jake and Noah don’t know, though,” he says, slowly like it’s a question, and Emma nods, curling herself into Troy’s side so she can face Orion with a smile. “Do you not want to tell them?”

“It’s not so much that as it is – they have their own problems,” she says, propping her head on Troy’s bare chest. He makes a noise halfway between a sigh and a grunt, but doesn’t move otherwise. “I think knowing about us would just… confuse them more.”

“You mean about their feelings for each other?” Orion says, glancing down at Troy, who’s still staring up at the ceiling. Absently, he catalogues, for the millionth time, the curve of his lips, the cut of his jaw, the way his eyelashes flutter. He can’t imagine being in Noah’s situation – being in love and not being able to act on it.

Troy’s gaze slides to him for half a second before his eyes close. Under Orion’s hand, his chest rises and falls more slowly, with measured breaths. His heart pounds, _one-two-one-two-one-two_ , like a drumbeat beneath his fingers. He looks across at Emma who smiles back.

“They’ll figure it out,” she says lightly, and intertwines her fingers with Orion’s on top of Troy’s chest. “They’ll figure Gia out, too. In their own time. Just not while we’re all so busy fighting.”

Orion sighs, thinking of the war, of his planet, of their mission. He thinks Emma can sense it, because she squeezes his hand. He glances down at Troy, who opens one eye to shoot him a smile.

“We’ll be okay,” Troy says, _we_ meaning the three of them and also their team. “How _did_ you notice us, anyway?” he asks Orion.

He has to think about it for a moment. “I don’t know,” he admits. “It was just… a feeling I got. When I met you guys, you just – you just seemed like you belonged together. And – and you touched each other a lot, when you thought people weren’t looking.”

Emma smiles as Troy dances his fingers up her back. “Most people weren’t,” she points out. “How did you know what to look for?”

Orion shrugs helplessly, unsure of the answer himself. “Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I was just looking at the two of you way more than I should have been.”

This gets a laugh out of Troy, the sound vibrating his chest beneath Orion’s hand. “Good thing you did,” he says, amused. “Or we wouldn’t be here.”

“Yeah,” Orion agrees, sliding his head down to rest against Troy’s shoulder as he smiles over at Emma. “ _Here_ is a pretty nice place to be.”

-:-

He keeps noticing things, long after he probably doesn’t need to anymore. But Troy and Emma keep finding ways to surprise him, whether by teaching him what love means for them on Earth or taking him out to their favorite restaurants so he can try Earth cuisine.

And he likes watching them. Emma has freckles on her shoulders that only show up when she’s been in the sun too long, and Troy likes tracing them over with his fingers and sometimes with his lips. Orion likes them, too, likes the way they form paths on her skin, from one side of her body to the other, likes following the path and seeing where it leads him.

Troy’s not usually ticklish, but he notices that he starts squirming whenever Emma’s lips or Orion’s hands wander too low on his hips, right above the waistband of his jeans, and he notices that Emma never fails to take advantage of this when they have him in bed. Troy can fake annoyance, but Orion notices that he really doesn’t mind at all.

Emma likes wearing Troy’s shirts and nothing else; she tells him that she wouldn’t mind wearing his shirts, except he has very few, only the ones that she and Gia helped him buy on their one trip. He asks Gia to take him to the mall again, without Emma, and returns with some more shirts. The first time she wears one of his, bright silver over her pale skin, Troy doesn’t let her take it off the entire night.

Troy has this habit of licking his lips a lot when he’s concentrating on something, like studying or cooking dinner, and he notices that it always leads to Emma kissing him as soon as the three of them are alone. He can’t blame her; he spends most of their study dates imagining kissing Troy, too, every time he runs his tongue over his lips, and Emma always lets him have his turn, though she takes a bit longer than usual, those days.

Emma looks prettiest in the dawn light, not that she doesn’t always look pretty, but Troy agrees when he mentions it to him. The way the rising sun washes over her makes her look like a goddess, especially when she’s sitting on Troy’s balcony railing out in the open air wearing only her underwear as the two of them trail kisses down her body.

Orion tells her this once, and she smiles and tells him he looks best in the moonlight.

-:-

He’s not really in the habit of noticing things about himself, though, so it comes as a surprise when Troy tells him one night, when they’re lying together with Orion in the middle, that he thinks Orion kisses softer, these days.

“What do you mean?” he asks in confusion.

“I mean,” Troy pauses, tracing the outline of Orion’s muscles with his fingers, “you used to kiss – harder? Like you were angry, not with us, but with the world. Like you were making up for something.”

Emma, on his other side, hooks her leg over his and propels herself up to straddle him, pushing him gently down onto the pillow and leaning forward to kiss him. He meets her easily, sucking on her bottom lip – she likes that, he’s noticed – and opening his mouth, but she doesn’t let it go for very long.

When she sits up, she looks over at Troy, who raises an eyebrow at her. “You’re right. He kisses happier now.”

Troy’s fingers slide down his stomach and come up on Emma’s thigh; she shifts around on Orion’s hips, but it’s not uncomfortable. Troy is good with his hands; he’s noticed that, too. “I think it’s a good thing,” he says with a shrug.

“You guys make me happy,” Orion admits, smiling up at Emma who beams back at him. “I’ve never been with people like you before.”

Emma brushes her fingers over his hair, combing it out of his eyes. “Who _have_ you been with before?” she asks softly, genuine curiosity in her voice. “Like, on Andresia? Were there people before us?”

“Not like this,” Orion says, watching Troy’s hand climb higher up Emma’s bare leg. He debates doing the same on her other leg; he knows from experience neither of them will mind, but he’s kind of exhausted already, and right now, just watching the two of them seems like a nicer prospect. “There was a boy – he worked in the quarry with me, but – ”

He cuts himself off, thinking too much about Andresia, and Troy’s hand stills, both of them turning to look at him. He sighs deeply, and Emma gently lays a hand over his heart, her fingers cool against the heat of his skin.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Troy says, leaning over so his breath tickles Orion’s cheek, the words warm and kind as they wash over him. “But we’re here if you do.”

“Thanks,” he murmurs, sliding one hand up Emma’s body and tangling the other in Troy’s. “I appreciate that.”

Emma smiles and taps a rhythm over his heart, two-four-three. _We love you._

“Tell us about Andresia?” she asks, and it’s a different question from her first. He grins up at her and she shifts down to curl up on his chest so he can drape his arm around her and talk to them about his home long into the night.

-:-

He starts realizing that Troy and Emma are noticing things about him, too, after that. They don’t usually tell him outright, like they did about his kisses, but as the war comes to a close and he settles in on Earth, their dynamic shifts from when it was new and bright and full of exploring to something a little warmer, a little steadier, a little calmer.

Troy knows how he likes his coffee, even though Orion still doesn’t understand all the words for it. He makes them all coffee for their study nights in his house, and it always tastes better than the kind they order at coffee shops.

Emma figures out his favorite lipgloss on her without him even realizing it at first – she has a million pink ones, and he’s tasted all manner of flavors on her lips, but she starts wearing peach more and more, and it quickly becomes his favorite taste.

Troy is the only one on the team who’s better than him when it comes to sparring, only because he’s been practicing martial arts for most of his life, but he always knows how to work with Orion, how to get him to improve, and he always understands what he’s doing wrong before Orion does himself.

Emma puts a camera in his hands and tells him to take pictures of her; after a while, he gets in the habit of taking pictures of all of them and the world around him, and he understands why Emma likes chronicling nature so much. Earth is beautiful, and he hadn’t really appreciated it until she showed him how.

-:-

“Who did you like first?” Emma asks him, giggling into his kiss, and he has to stop to pull back and look at her in bemusement. “Of the two of us,” she elaborates, and Troy surfaces from between her thighs to flash him a grin. “Who did you _know_ you liked first?”

Orion laughs, sliding off her and onto the bed with a thump. “I don’t know,” he says, watching with interest as Troy kisses his way back up Emma’s body. “You were both so – so _bright_ , I didn’t really think I stood a chance with either of you, so I didn’t think about it too much. You were the leader and the heart of the team. I was just – the new guy.”

“The cute new guy,” Emma says with a smile, reaching a hand out to run over his chest and down his stomach; he has to swallow an embarrassing noise when her fingers wander lower. “Come on, though, you have to have noticed one of us first. Troy is, like, beyond hot – ”

“Hey,” Troy chuckles against her neck, pulling himself up to protest, “That’s not fair. You want him to say you.”

“Don’t you?” she asks innocently, batting her lashes at him. Orion smiles at the way Troy melts immediately. He still finds himself surprised, even now, that they let him in on their relationship. Emma told him once that it was only ever him, that anyone else probably would have been scared off, and she’s right. _He’d_ almost been scared off in the first place.

“Seriously,” Troy is saying when he tunes back in to the conversation, “Emma is gorgeous, so I wouldn’t blame you.”

Emma hits him in the chest and he catches her hand, smiling brilliantly at her. She rolls her eyes but she’s laughing as she turns around to face Orion. “Honest answer,” she says, tapping her fingers across his stomach and he squirms under her touch. “We won’t be mad, promise.”

Orion bites his lip in thought; doesn’t miss the way both of them watch his mouth as he does so. “Honestly? I think I saw Troy first.”

“Ha,” Troy grins, his hand darting to Emma’s side, and she yelps when he tickles her. “I win.”

“Really? I think _I_ win,” Emma says, and then yanks him by the arm so he falls over on top of her and half on Orion, the three of them laughing as they lie there with their limbs tangled. Emma’s hand finds his somewhere beneath Troy and squeezes, and Troy is laughing as he manages to get himself enough off Emma so that he can kiss Orion, and Orion doesn’t think he’s ever felt so happy.

-:-

And there are other things, things he didn’t even know about himself before he met them, things he doesn’t realize until they figure it out for him.

He bites his lip whenever he watches them take off their clothes; Emma brings this up teasingly once, but she says it’s cute, so he doesn’t stop. He figures out pretty quickly that they’ve turned it into a competition to see who can get their clothes off and kiss him first.

He enjoys watching Troy train alone; he hadn’t noticed he was staring at him until Troy called him out on it with an amused smile. It’s something about the way he looks, shirtless and sweating – Emma calls it the martial arts effect, and he asks her if he has it, too. She doesn’t answer, but he’s pretty sure he does from the way she looks at him.

He has a spot in the middle of his back that Troy finds first and every time one of them kisses it or touches it, he more or less melts in their arms. It’s embarrassing the first few times, how easy it is to get him like that, but Troy always smiles and Emma laughs and it stops mattering as much as their touches.

He likes Emma in skirts – he knows Troy prefers her in shorts, so he lets Orion take the lead on the days she wears a dress, and he lifts Emma up onto the nearest table and slides her skirt up her hips and kisses her until she’s in that state of dazed and giggly, and he notices she starts to wear skirts a little more often after the first time.

He doesn’t mind being in the dark as much as Emma, who says she likes to see their faces when they’re together, so sometimes Troy will back him up in a janitor’s closet at school and take off his shirt and kiss down his body without Emma, and he only feels guilty until she assures him not to be, because why would she want to do anything in a janitor’s closet, anyway?

He learns that it doesn’t bother him like he thought it would when Troy and Emma still sometimes do things with just the two of them, like when Troy gives her martial arts lessons which usually ends in them making out against a tree in the woods, because he likes watching them together, anyway – there’s something about the two of them that never fails to fascinate him.

He finds he falls a little more in love with them every time he watches them, every time they kiss him or touch him, every night he spends in bed with them. He hadn’t known that would happen; he had never really been in love before.

He hadn’t known he would like being in this kind of relationship so much before he met them; he hadn’t known how two humans from another planet could take hold of his heart so quickly and so easily but they had.

He hadn’t known how much he would miss them, when he left for Andresia before the final battle, but he did, and when he came back, he promised he wasn’t going to leave without them anytime soon.

Coming back to Earth is like falling back into a puzzle where all the pieces match him perfectly, and Troy’s bed after the war ends is warmer than ever. Emma kisses him like she’s afraid he might disappear if she lets go, and Troy touches him like he’s worried about the same thing.

“I love you,” he murmurs to them as they fall asleep the first night after the end of the war, him in the middle because neither of them had wanted to let go of him. Troy and Emma are both halfway to sleep already, so they don’t say anything in response, but he thinks he feels them smile anyway.


End file.
